Genre is a fluid, performative concept, which involves the audience’s expectations as much as a set of preconceived rules and gestures to which a composer must comply in order to have produced a work that is in a recognisable genre. As Jeffrey Kallberg has written, genre is a ‘social phenomenon shared by composers and listeners alike’.1 It is how a generic term is used, within which contexts and traditions, and how it is perceived by composers and audiences, that gives genre meaning. Indeed, genre is ‘a communicative concept’. A ‘generic contract’ is developed between composer and listener, in which the composer uses some of the key characteristics associated with a genre and the listener agrees to interpret these conventions in a way ‘conditioned by the genre’.2 The knowledge that a listener is about to hear a symphony creates a number of expectations about the number and type of instruments involved, for example, how those instruments might be handled, the length of the work and number of movements, the types of forms used, even the setting in which the work should be performed and where in the world it may have been composed. Genre can inform the way the listener interprets associated norms and any deviations from those norms.

Liszt first visited Weimar in 1841 to give two concerts for the enjoyment of the ducal family. On this visit, he can scarcely have imagined that he would settle in the town full time for a whole decade and continue to be a frequent visitor for the rest of his life. In 1841, he was embarking on the most successful and lucrative years of his performing career. He was such a hit that the Grand Duke invited him to return the following year when he was offered the position of ‘Kapellmeister in Extraordinary Service’. For the next six years, Liszt returned to the town on an ad hoc basis, often conducting concerts to celebrate the birthdays of the Grand Ducal family.

The potential reach of composer biopics is undeniably broader than most other outlets for the historical discussion of music and musicians. Accordingly, biopics have a significant influence on the position of composers and their music in the popular imagination. Liszt appears in film more often than any other composer, from cameo roles to full-fledged biopics focusing solely on him. This chapter examines how the conventions and exigencies of film have shaped the way Liszt, his life and his music are presented.

For such a public figure who was clearly image-conscious, Liszt was surprisingly reticent when it came to biography. Unlike several of his closest friends, most obviously Berlioz and Wagner, he did not attempt to sum up his life for posterity in the form of memoirs, which undoubtedly would have been a best-seller had he written them. In many ways, his attitude to ‘life-writing’ was remarkably laissez-faire. He famously instructed his biographer Lina Ramann, ‘My biography is more to be invented rather than written after the fact’1 and largely maintained a hands-off approach as Ramann began work on the story of his life. This chapter attempts an overview of Liszt’s relationship with ‘life-writing’, beginning with his rare forays into autobiography, then his own experiments as a biographer and ending with a discussion of how biographers have depicted him from the nineteenth century until today.